I'd give it an 8/10. It's a solid game, and very well polished to perfection in the areas the series has already excelled at for years. It's a bit short and simple for a game with such a hefty price tag, but I'm willing to bet this is more down to Sony wanting a headlining platformer to showcase on the PS5 - and it does this much as the game looks and plays mostly like a dream.
The issues for me are in the writing and direction. Never before has the franchise felt so de-fanged. There used to be a real edge and grit to Ratchet and it's sadly fallen by the wayside. This is arguably true of quite a few of the newer games, but Tools of Destruction was able to hide it behind the innovative jump to PS3, and A Crack in Time behind some truly innovative story telling. Rift Apart doesn't have that to help it out. It looks stunning, but it doesn't do anything to innovate. It plays well, but on little over half of the planets that you used to get. By the time you get to the sense it's humour and wit has been neutered too, there is something worrying 'generic platformer' creeping in about it all. Little is actually done with the universe-bending premise once it's presented very early in the game, if anything it ends up leading to a somewhat patchy and ambling story that is more likely to go for traditional schmaltz than trademark snark. Even Nefarious doesn't get that much of a chance to shine, and the script doesn't afford him a shred of the humour he used to get.
This isn't a bad game by any stretch of the definition, but the issues with it are... pronounced? It leaves it feeling a bit superfluous compared to entries before it. For the next one, above all else I'd try to give it some fangs again. If you're not going to reinvent the wheel (which is fair when you've near perfected it) then at least give it some of that old edge that used to make the games stand out as so enticing.
Comments 1
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart?
I'd give it an 8/10. It's a solid game, and very well polished to perfection in the areas the series has already excelled at for years. It's a bit short and simple for a game with such a hefty price tag, but I'm willing to bet this is more down to Sony wanting a headlining platformer to showcase on the PS5 - and it does this much as the game looks and plays mostly like a dream.
The issues for me are in the writing and direction. Never before has the franchise felt so de-fanged. There used to be a real edge and grit to Ratchet and it's sadly fallen by the wayside. This is arguably true of quite a few of the newer games, but Tools of Destruction was able to hide it behind the innovative jump to PS3, and A Crack in Time behind some truly innovative story telling. Rift Apart doesn't have that to help it out. It looks stunning, but it doesn't do anything to innovate. It plays well, but on little over half of the planets that you used to get. By the time you get to the sense it's humour and wit has been neutered too, there is something worrying 'generic platformer' creeping in about it all. Little is actually done with the universe-bending premise once it's presented very early in the game, if anything it ends up leading to a somewhat patchy and ambling story that is more likely to go for traditional schmaltz than trademark snark. Even Nefarious doesn't get that much of a chance to shine, and the script doesn't afford him a shred of the humour he used to get.
This isn't a bad game by any stretch of the definition, but the issues with it are... pronounced? It leaves it feeling a bit superfluous compared to entries before it. For the next one, above all else I'd try to give it some fangs again. If you're not going to reinvent the wheel (which is fair when you've near perfected it) then at least give it some of that old edge that used to make the games stand out as so enticing.